on my way back... vipassana

29 July 2018

On my way back from a ten day vipassana meditation retreat in Herefordshire. Nine days of silence. Not for me as I was helping out on it, but nevertheless a much quieter place to be superficially at least, although of course as the exterior sound dies down a little – the emails, the conversations, the requests, the thousand and one things waiting to be done, the numerous projects it seems irresistible to take on constantly beckoning, the weeds in the garden meanwhile growing longer and longer – as all this dies down and falls away the internal busyness makes itself known. How tiring my life is both in and out – the constant chatter of my mind, my body, my emotions. But just as they swell up one after the other so too do they pass away. Riding on the current of them with an awareness of physical bodily sensations there is, in all this motion, a certain stillness that can be achieved, a stillness to take away and to continue to live and feel back in the hurly burly of the everyday. Tired and hot on the motionless train, what’s happening on the body? Waiting for the metro what’s happening on the body. Deciding where to buy a sandwich, what’s happening on the body? Pulling the suitcase down the platform, what’s happening on the body? Body and sensations taking me in. Body sensations taking into the now.